Toward a new era for harm reduction in Afghanistan

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Médecins du Monde (MdM) and Organisation for Harm Reduction in Afghanistan (OHRA).

The programme originally aimed to introduce harm reduction in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan at a time when it was clear that there was a concentrated HIV epidemic among people using drugs in the country.

To tackle this challenge, the comprehensive UN package of 9 services has been introduced and implemented on a 5 years timeframe in partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. Some major steps in the programme included the introduction of NSPs in 2006, ART in 2009 and OST in 2010. But even then, MdM wished to enlarge the range of services delivered to people using drugs and defined a 12-components package, including peer based Naloxone distribution to manage overdose cases.

The signature of the MoU is a great milestone in the hand over the model of harm reduction programme that MdM that been implementing since 2006 to a national NGO.

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